A paid 600-hour placement inside an established Montreal arts organisation, for artists who arrived in Canada recently.
démART-Mtl pays an artist or cultural worker $15,000 for 600 hours of real work inside an established Montreal company. It is aimed at people who are new to the city and to how the sector here operates.
Read the structure before you plan around it. A company files the application, and creation and production companies are eligible mandates, so a circus or dance company can host a placement. The participant has to be chosen before the file goes in.
The artist or cultural worker receives $15,000 for 600 hours, a rate of $25 an hour. The host organisation receives a separate $2,000 to cover what it costs to bring someone in.
There are two streams. The artistic stream places performers, musicians, lighting designers and artistic directors inside a company to practise their art there. The administrative stream places cultural workers alongside a general, communications, production or market development director, and they can end up running a project of their own.
The 600 hours run either between 4 January and 29 June 2027, or between 7 June and 26 November 2027, continuously or spread over six months. A designated supervisor inside the organisation follows the placement and assesses it at the end.
- ·THE APPLICANT IS AN ORGANISATION. A circus or dance company can file this: creation and production is on the list of eligible mandates, alongside research, specialised or multidisciplinary diffusion, cultural periodicals, events and festivals, museums, and service organisations or associations.
- ·The organisation has to be a non-profit corporation or a non-profit artist cooperative that pays no dividend, with its head office on the island of Montreal, and a board that is majority Canadian citizens or permanent residents. A for-profit incorporated company does not qualify.
- ·What is not eligible is an individual immigrant artist or cultural worker proposing a project on their own, or an artist collective wanting to host someone. Also excluded: public and parapublic bodies, libraries, teaching and training organisations, and organisations working exclusively in variety or comedy.
- ·The participant must hold Canadian citizenship or permanent residence, live on the island of Montreal, be from a cultural community or a visible minority, and be a newcomer or first-generation immigrant.
- ·The participant must be self-employed or part-time in their art, and meet the CAM definition of a professional.
- ·One application per organisation per year, for one person. Two organisations cannot propose the same person in the same round, nobody can be selected because they are family, and you cannot propose someone who has already worked with you on more than one project.
- ·Circus is on the eligible discipline list, alongside street arts, digital arts, film and video, dance, literature, music, theatre, visual arts, non-disciplinary practices and the multidisciplinary sector.